THE old basketball court in Sitio Kawayan in Sambag 2 was located on the lower portion of the village near the Guadalupe River, which separates a part of our barangay from Barangay Calamba. When the old TB Pavillon’s fence that shielded a vacant lot at the back of the hospital from the upper portion of our sitio fell, a race of sorts to occupy the lot, which was owned by the Department of Health, followed. Even the barangay council joined--I say thankfully--and it was able to salvage spaces now occupied by some barangay council offices and a bigger, cemented and covered basketball court, now referred to as the “gym.”
A good basketball court is magnet for visitors who want to challenge the skills of the locals and earn from side bets. One unforgettable moment for me in the “gym’s” early years was the visit (the apt term in Cebuano is “nanung” or “nanulong”) of three young men who dared the local players, most of them “estambays” to a three-on-three game. I watched them play and learned some valuable lessons from it.
Our youngsters hastily cobbled a team of three. As the game progressed, it soon became obvious that the visitors, who weren’t taller, on average, compared to the locals, were far superior in team work and skills. The passing was crisp, befuddling the locals, and any one of them left open scored. It was apparent they were a team for a long time already and trained hard. That gave them the confidence to walk into gyms everywhere in the city and make money by winning bets.
When the first hastily cobbled team of local basketball players lost, another team was hastily cobbled to put up another challenge. In frustration, the next challenger-team tried to be physical, but it was difficult to put pressure on a ball-handler who knows how to pass. How could you gang him up when the ball is already in the hands of the other player left open? Rather than lose more money, our basketball players eventually came to their senses and gave up. Nobody was crazy enough to challenge the visitors again and they left with the money they won and with smiles that never left their faces.
When I viewed on television the games of Gilas Pilipinas against Italy and Serbia in the basketball world cup held in China a few days ago, I remembered that game years ago in the Sitio Kawayan gym. Gilas lost by wide margins to teams with superior skills and teamwork. I won’t mention “bigger” because that wasn’t really what did Gilas in. A hastily cobbled group can never win against a team that is not only skilled but also one whose cohesion as a unit is well developed.
And the coach of the Serbian team was correct. If you lose by wide margins to your opponents, you probably do not deserve to be there in the first place. Not unless you go there well prepared. When all has been said and done, I say we should no longer send hastily cobbled basketball teams to international tournaments.
We Cebuanos have a line for what the Serbian coach said: “Ayaw mog patugatuga.” Blunt words, but if we don’t change for the better, I say amen to that.